Detective Hassan Hamdy made the split-second decision to fire a single fatal shot at an unarmed motorist during an early morning traffic stop on a highway in Queens because he thought the driver was reaching for a gun, according to the detective’s lawyer. The driver, Noel Polanco, 22, did not comply with Detective Hamdy’s orders to put his hands up, instead reaching “down in a quick motion, down on the floor of the car,” said lawyer Philip Karasyk, representing the detective. Detective Hamdy twice yelled “Police!” and was wearing a heavy vest with the word “police” written across it, Mr....

A New York police detective shot and killed an unarmed man, whose hands, a witness said, were on the steering wheel of his Honda, after he had been pulled over early Thursday for cutting off two police trucks on the Grand Central Parkway in Queens, the authorities said....The shooting, which occurred at 5:15 a.m., was the latest in a series of episodes in which police officers fatally shot or wounded civilians...A passenger in Mr. Polanco’s car, Diane Deferrari, said in a phone interview Thursday night that just before pulling the car over, officers appeared irate that Mr. Polanco had cut...

An Army reservist with a clean record was fatally shot in his car by an NYPD detective early Thursday — before he even had “a chance to put his hands up” in surrender, a witness told the Daily News. Noel Polanco, 22, was killed on the Grand Central Parkway in what witness Diane DeFerrari called an act of “pure road rage” following a terrifying chase by cops in an unmarked vehicle. “Noel didn't have a chance to put his hands up. They screamed, ‘Put up your hands!’ and shot at the same time,” said DeFerrari, a 36-year-old bartender who was...